Bob Shryock: My New Year's Resolution: Not to make any resolutions

It’s New Year’s Eve, time for most of us to make the
perfunctory resolutions, but, once again, I’m resisting the temptation.
There’s good reason for that. In a lifetime, I’ve made exactly one
resolution I’ve managed to keep, plus dozens of others, mostly
diet-related, that have been broken within weeks.

So my resolution for 2010 is simply to avoid making any. That way, I
won’t have to use this space to apologize for another failure.

It was Dec. 31, 1975, Bicentennial eve, and I was severely addicted to
cigarettes. That’s unless you don’t consider four packs a day much of
an addiction.

It was bad. Real bad. During an eight-hour newspaper shift — you could
still smoke in buildings then — I routinely went through three packs of
Marlboro, or 60 cigarettes. That’s seven or eight an hour, a
preposterous pace. They’d be burned down to the nubs in ashtrays
throughout the newsroom, stinking up the place. Then, at home, a fourth
pack before bedtime.

In the morning, my head would be pounding and I’d be hacking non-stop.
My fingers and teeth were yellow. But I lit up another (I’ve always
blamed sultry Julie London’s “Where There’s a Man, There’s a Marlboro”
early 1960s TV ads for the choice) and went off to work. Thank God it
wasn’t drugs.

Cigarettes cost less than $1 a pack in 1975 but today the New Jersey
average is $7. Do the math. If I was still smoking four packs a day
today, it would cost roughly $200 a week for the habit. How stupid is
that?

Thirty-four New Year’s Eves ago I took a pack of Marlboros to a party
at Wenonah Fire Co. and announced to disbelieving friends, “I’m
quitting smoking.”

At midnight, I lit up one more Marlboro, saluted Julie London, and
quit, cold turkey, discarding half a pack. From 80 a day to zero, just
like that.

About a year later I hit a personal roadblock and instantly was back
smoking four packs a day for two days before realizing how utterly dumb
that was. I quit again, haven’t smoked since, and never will.

That was the one resolution, the only one, that held up.

Otherwise, a lifetime of broken promises — mostly because of resolving
to lose weight. Every January in memory I’ve lost a few pounds only to
see the weight reappear, and then some, in February. If you got points
for January weight loss only, I may qualify for Biggest Loser.
Unfortunately, there’s a hunger factor. How many 240-calorie Salisbury
steak microwave mini-meals can a guy consume? Four bites and you’re
done.

One January my doctor prescribed an upper that dramatically curbed my
appetite. In one dizzying month, I shed 30 pounds, lost two belt
notches, and fit into a leisure suit. When I asked the doc for a
refill, he correctly refused. For the next few weeks, I squirmed on the
TV room sofa, depressed, unmotivated, and quickly regained the 30
pounds plus a few.

I’ve tried practically every diet known to man but haven’t found one that works.

However, because of doing a marginally better job of watching what I
eat, and how much, I weigh less today than in 10 or 15 years...and feel
remarkably better.

I’d like to reach 170, the preferred target weight, but resolutions are supposed to be realistic.